Freedom in the World of the Political (etc.)*

0.   Introduction

	A set of headings and ideas presenting a less complicated version (for workshopping) of the paper titled: A Phenomenological Re-Definition of Freedom, etc., and, Its Application to the Spheres of the Political, etc. [1] (0)

	Two problems: how do we achieve a deeper understanding of the nature of human freedom, and, how do we augment this sense of freedom in the sphere of the political (etc., i.e., also experience freedom personally and interpersonally). [1] (1)

	A third philosophical problem will also be looked into: how does a person interact with an organization, and v.v., and, how do organizations interact with each other given a degree of incommensurability between these various parties, or, our wondering how organizations can act as quasi-autonomously like intentional agents? [3, 34-36] (2)

	A fourth philosophical problem: can states/countries haves ‘rights’ in the same manner as individuals (and what are they? Obligations and responsibilities being seen as intrinsic to the functioning of relationships and ensuring their existential preservation, expansion, re-direction, etc.). [48, 49] (3)

1.   Some Definitions

	By ‘a deeper understanding…’ read a transcendental-phenomenological appreciation (read ‘description/re-description – prescription/re-prescription’ on the grounds that there is refinement of descriptions, etc., and, on a deeper level of transcendental appreciation (read ‘judgmental processes’) the distinctive domains of the descriptive and prescriptive are transcended (and thence an intuitive overcoming of the naturalistic fallacy on this deeper level of epistemological functioning). A transcendental-phenomenological investigation is being conducted when that under investigation is subjected to an overall transcendental suspension (as defined [14, 20, 24, etc.]). I will argue that authenticity is expanded or augmented, along with our freedom (of opportunity), when the overall transcendental suspension is utilized at the center of our search/research program. Essentially a balance (symmetry) of content and process; the affective, cognitive and judgmental; concept with anti-concept; global world-view/s, etc. Through a suspension of the suspension passive reflection is converted into an active response (with an asymmetry of power/expression). [21, ff 1] (4)

	By political also read ‘personal’ (as the psychological reality of one intentional agent w.r.t. themselves) and ‘sociological’ (relationships ships between two or more  intentional agents). The political I then define as ‘the hierarchical structuralization of the sociological’. [11] (5)

	Freedom is re-defined as existential or emergent opportunity. {9} [9] (7) *Latest version of text: www.homestead.com/noelshomepage/noelshomepage3.html
2.   The Phenomenological Nature of Existential Opportunity

	Freedom is not to be contrasted/non-contrasted from or against a causal determinism (as developed in the so-called European Enlightenment; as represented by Leibniz, e.g., etc.). [2,13](8)

	Rather it is to seen an emergent opportunity and the possibility of an augmentation of the same (through an expansion of those horizons). Hence its realization in and through our existential engagement. [14] (9). 

	E.g.,  a (good) marriage (versus a bad marriage). {13}(10)

	As an existential excess and a (shared) potential augmentation of the same. Such is shared by all the (intentionally-oriented) participants/(non-intentionally-oriented) factors in that relationship. Hence mutuality in this regard. {27, etc.} (11)

	E.g., a lion put into a larger enclosure (more freedom/opportunity despite persisting limits as that’s always the case [because we are embodied, etc.]). {22} (12)

	Freedom as opportunity  also associated with obligations, responsibilities, motivations, consequences, etc. Note the example of the friend who wins the lottery and shares/does not share their winnings. Hence the concept of mutuality. Thence the concepts of exchange-processes and implicated obligations [written or underwritten by the nature of our genre expectations, etc; e.g., as associated with the social conventions associated with gifts/gift-giving] {27} (13)

	Note: opportunity is exercised in a mode-of-life say playing a game of chess, eating a meal with a friend, reading a book, etc. But comes with restrictions by virtue of entering that mode-of-life/not entering some other mode-of-life. In opportunity (freedom) overall benefits are seen to outweigh limitations taken on (in our ‘entry’ into a certain mode of life). {17} (14)

3.   The Application of Our Understanding of Existential Opportunity

By application is meant ‘the utilization of a certain attitudinal directive wherein resolution is realized in order to achieve the ends desired behind the particular intentional motivation of that application.’ In other words, how are the ends of a certain application to be realized in practice (be that theoretical, practical and/or critical in orientation)? {31} [31-39] (15)

	Through the use of an overall transcendental suspension applied to our entry into all current or possibly current modes-of-life as our overall entry into the World-of-Life. [38, etc., 47, etc.] (16)

	How do we interact with institutions (say, e.g., local councils, local government, federal government, etc.), and, how do institutions interact among themselves (say, e.g., as one country versus another)? {12} [12] (17)

	Not a real problem – observe the paper trails, or rather, today, observe the e-trails, etc; noting the parallel, intersecting and interacting trails of deposition in the light of genres of expected behaviour (that already have distinctive pathways of interaction laid down between the same, etc. Such as paying rates, voting, etc.)! [12] (18)

4.   Authenticity and its Augmentation

	Note: opportunity is exercised in a mode-of-life. Individually and collectively. I.e., that an overall sense of freedom, i.e., ‘opportunity’, is the net result(ant) of all our modes-of-life that are co-entered, should be entered, have been entered, will be entered soon… Hence the distinction between propriety of opportunity (internal to a mode-of-life) and appropriateness of opportunity (external to all individually entered/to-be-entered) modes-of-life. E.g., paying rates before they are due and having as a consequence no finance to eat, etc, and, our not paying them now but when due and having enough finance in the meantime to be able to eat, etc. Contrast too the responsibility embedded in our necessity to pay our rates (by virtue of the asymmetry of power between state organizations and the individual; that deferral in this instance should not be absolutely enacted). {42, 43} (19)

	How can this net benefit of opportunity be ‘calculated’? As an intuitive resultant discerned in an overall transcendental suspension (given an adequacy of preparation, exercise and post-conditional consequential reflection). {43, 44} (20)

5.   Provisional Conclusions?

That authenticity is trans-intentionally enacted, that authenticity is effectively realized on a simulated relational basis, and, an augmentation in authenticity generally realizes an augmentation in the freedom to be experienced by that individual or those individuals involved therein, i.e., that a greater sense of emergent or existential opportunity is mutually realized therein. {38}[38](21)

	What does this paragraph mean?

1.	Authenticity is enacted existentially in the course of judgment whose authenticity is dependent upon an adequate/adequacy of an overall transcendental suspension.
2.	The world is simulated in our reflections but as a simulation qua simulation (and not as the simulation of the non-simulated or pre-simulated [through a phenomenal-phenomenological directness of relationships]).
3.	An expansion and augmentation of authenticity, as an emergent existential excess of value, is realized in and through a purification of that degree of authenticity already found resident in that specific relationship (being realized in the particularity of that mode-of-life) (in accordance with its genre-expectations). (22)

	That, in effect, existential opportunity is generally realized through an augmentation of authenticity already to-hand in its associated relationship! Thence the concept of a (transcendental) purification of the relatively non-transcendental (i.e., the natural, etc.). Because the existence and persistence of ‘community’ implies a core, existential sense of authenticity already to-hand.{39}[39] (23)
	
How is this authenticity to be intuitively determined in the course of our passage through the Life-World? In and through, as stated, the adequately conducted overall transcendental suspension! {45}[45] (24)

Therefore, let us attend to this formation and simulation, preservation and augmentation of authenticity in order to refine that degree of mutuality already present in our relationships. That, by such means, we discover a greater sense of freedom-in-the-world through this augmentation of our intentional-existences before-other with-others! Thence authenticity and its augmentation along with their devolution of an emergent process of expanded opportunity in the form of an existential sense of freedom! {47}[47] (25)

Emergent opportunity has two faces – on one hand it is constrained or limited, and, on the other, in reference to its material basis through an existential excess of value we are permitted to go well beyond such a basis through processes of emergence. Moreover, those constraints can also be moved on, re-written, by-passed, expanded, etc., through a process of transcendental purification and its consequent augmentation (through amplification). {50}[50] (26)

Thus freedom is lived and is life itself, a life as lived by-us before-others in the Life-World, this World-of-Life as an existential world of value which, through emergence, continually offers us an expansive world of opportunity, and therein, a sense of relative freedom!! {50}[50] (27)

	‘Rights’, their actualized simulation, are best exercised and engaged in the appropriate field of value formation with propriety and validity/self-validity for the relationship/s concerned). Similar to natural rights of an individual. What ever fosters and preserves the existence of an authentic relationship/adds value to the same. {49}[48,49] (28)

	Thence phenomenal-phenomenological freedom of opportunity and its augmentation in the political world, etc., with others, etc! (29)

							    Noël Tointon, Sydney, 15.9.07.